


XOXO

by cymyguy



Series: Volleygirls prompts [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Cookies, F/F, First Kiss, Fluff, Gender or Sex Swap, Middle School, Secret Admirer, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-30
Updated: 2019-08-30
Packaged: 2020-09-30 18:47:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,422
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20451851
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cymyguy/pseuds/cymyguy
Summary: Tobio wishes Valentine’s Day didn’t exist. But at least this will all be over tomorrow. And Tobio doesn’t have to worry about anybody sparing any romantic feelings for her; earlier this week she overheard some classmates saying she’ll be the prettiest girl who doesn’t get any Valentine’s cookies. Which is fine with her.





	XOXO

**Author's Note:**

> prompt: food

Tobio wishes Valentine’s Day didn’t exist. Well, for old married people it’s fine, but for middle schoolers it sucks, and they’d all be better off if February were just a short, cold month and that’s it. If she has to hear another word about those stupid heart-shaped cookies the basketball teams are selling—

She’ll do nothing but continue to sit in her desk, staring out the window and ignoring the fact that she has no friends to distract her with other lunchtime topics. At least this will all be over tomorrow. And Tobio doesn’t have to worry about anybody sparing any romantic feelings for her; she rejected a few boys early in the schoolyear, and after that there was a rumor going around that she was rude and snotty. It’s not her fault if she came off that way, because she didn’t ask to get that kind of attention, and it was a downright mortifying surprise the first time it happened, to a barely fourteen-year-old who’s pretty sure she only likes girls anyway.

There’s also the thing that happened with her volleyball team, just at the end of last month, during their last tournament. That’s gotten around school too. Tobio’s definitely not worried about any surprises tomorrow. Earlier this week she overheard some classmates saying she’ll be the prettiest girl who _doesn’t _get any Valentine’s cookies. Which is fine with her.

The cookies are delivered to homeroom first thing in the morning. The basketball players hand them out personally, and she’s never been more reluctant to be counted as part of the girls in this class. Tobio lays her head on her arm and stares out the window, waiting for the giggling and too-sweet thank you’s to be over.

“Tobio Kageyama.”

She stiffens, thinking a teacher’s getting after her for slouching again. Then something is set on her desk, and she slides her eyes over to the heart-shaped cookie, as big as the paper plate underneath it. Tobio sits up.

It’s covered in a clear plastic bag and pink frosting. Printed in white icing overtop are four letters: XOXO.

She looks up at the delivery boy, who grins, but when she scowls his eyes get wide and he hurries away from her. Tobio looks at the cookie again. Her name is printed very clearly on the paper heart tag, beside ‘To.’ Beside ‘From,’ there’s a question mark.

Tobio doesn’t know what to do, so she turns and looks for the delivery boy, only to see that several classmates are looking at her, in obvious wonder. There’s a whole stack of cookies on one girl’s desk, but she’s looking at Tobio’s one anonymous Valentine gesture. Tobio feels her neck getting hot and wills the blush not to reach her cheeks, as she turns back toward the window, hiding her face and the cookie as much as possible.

The rest of the day does not go as planned. She pays even less attention to her studies, instead wracking her brain to come up with one person who has recently smiled at her, or greeted her in the morning, or picked up something she had dropped. She knows the last thing never happened, because the only time she’s clumsy enough to drop something is when it’s purposely knocked out of her hands, and obviously the person’s not going to help pick it up, then. In the hall between classes, she leers at everyone around her, gauging their reactions to her presence. None of them are very promising. At lunch she sits up straight, trying to look relatively inviting, and eats slowly to give a potential admirer the chance to eat and still have time to come find her. But no one comes. After her meal she goes back to her locker, where the cookie is safely stored, opens the bag and pulls off a little edge piece from the top of the heart. It’s soft, a plain sugar cookie sweetened with not too much frosting, just enough.

She’s standing back at her locker at the end of the day, tossing her books in a little angrily. No one’s come to confess, and she has no good guess, no guess at all, really, of who could have sent her the cookie. She takes it out and frowns hard at the tag, then at the frosting message. Her cheeks heat up again, and she glances to either side of her, to see if anyone’s maybe waiting to talk to her alone.

She sees a couple boys at the end of the hall. They’re looking at her and laughing with each other. When she makes eye contact, they hurry around the corner. Tobio sees red.

Of course it was a joke. Nobody smiles at her, nobody greets her, nobody at this school even talks to her. Nobody would actually send her a cookie with pure intentions. The girls said she wouldn’t get one, so some boys probably bought it as a joke. And she totally fell for it, and made a fool of herself all day. Tobio crosses the hall, and the remaining stragglers jump out of her way; she stomps to the nearest garbage can and lifts up the cookie, ready to slam it in.

“Hey!”

She stops, turning her head just slightly. There’s a girl running up to her. She’s small, with orange hair. Tobio’s never seen her before.

“You’re _throwing away _my cookie?”

It’s snatched from Tobio’s hands before she can blink.

“You barely even ate any of it! I bought it as a Valentine’s gift for you!”

“Y—You bought it?” Tobio says.

She’s scowling as she nods adamantly.

Tobio feels like a hundred worms have been dropped into her stomach. She turns a nice Valentine shade of pink, then a full, deep red. A girl gave her the cookie. An actual girl, not a lousy boy. A real, tiny, really cute—girl.

“I thought it was a joke,” Tobio blurts. “Can I have it back?”

The girl scowls even harder, and pulls the cookie back protectively. “No.”

Tobio gapes.

“It’s mine!”

“_I _paid for it!”

“_My _name’s on it!”

She continues to scowl at her, and Tobio feels that bad little tyranny in her about burst out.

“You can have it,” the girl says, “After we talk. Outside.”

Tobio watches her turn and hurry away with her cookie. The redhead checks over her shoulder once. Tobio takes a moment to process everything that just happened in the minute since she stepped up to the garbage can. She decides to follow the girl.

They go around the side of the school, until the girl stops next to the gym. Students leave or go into the gym, but none come this way. The girl sets the cookie down on the corner of the little cement slab that sits behind the fire exit.

“I’m Shouyou,” she says. And she smiles, small, and crooked. Tobio lowers her eyes, starting to feel a blush come up again.

“I know you’re the setter for the volleyball team.”

Tobio’s head jerks up so fast she feels a little crick in her neck.

“I just moved here in January,” Shouyou says, toeing at the dirty snow with her shoe, “So they wouldn’t let me join the team, since the season was almost over. But I really want you to toss to me.” She looks at Tobio. “I’ve never had a real setter, because my old school didn’t have a team, so I had my friends and other people toss balls for me to hit, but I know a setter is amazing! And I heard everyone say you’re really really good at volleyball and love to practice, so I was hoping you would like to practice with me! I want to practice more before I join a high school team, because I’ve never actually been on one…”

Tobio stopped hearing her a few sentences in. She feels almost sick with anger, mostly at herself, for somehow being stupid enough to get fooled twice by the same trick. So the cookie really is a joke. A fake gesture. She got all squirrely and—and hopeful, when all this girl wants is to play volleyball? This time, that little tyrant does come out.

“You bought me a cookie because you wanted me to set to you?” she practically screams. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard!”

“Why are you getting mad?” the girl shouts back, but in panic. She turns and grabs the cookie. “Here! I planned on giving it back, honest!”

“Why did you have to give me a stupid cookie with some embarrassing message on it, on _Valentine’s _Day,” Tobio says, “When all you wanted was stupid tosses! You made me feel like an idiot because I thought someone—I thought—How was I supposed to know that’s all you wanted?”

Shouyou cocks her head. Her candy eyes blink.

“Hm? Did you want something else from it? Like a date for Valentine’s or something?”

“No, I don’t wanna go on a stupid date. And I’m not tossing for you either!”

Shouyou gapes. “What?”

She sets the cookie down again, with care. Then she turns on Tobio.

“But you’re the best setter in the school! I want to hit tosses from the best setter! You can’t just say no like that! I know, I’ll trade you, I’ll do something for you too! Um, not your homework though. I can’t even do my own homework,” she mumbles.

“I don’t want anything from you.”

“But you have to! There has to be something, so we can be even,” she whines. “Please? I can—bring you lunch! Or—give you a ride on my bike! Or…”

Tobio watches her keep babbling. Her cheeks look squishy. Her hair is bright, her eyes are bright, the t-shirt under her coat is bright. Her mouth has soft corners.

“Kiss me.”

Shouyou freezes. Then a deep crease sinks between her eyebrows, and her nose scrunches up.

“What?”

Tobio’s face flares red.

“What? That would be the worst thing ever, or something? It’s not even hard,” she grumbles, crossing her arms and looking at the ground.

“You—I—If I do that, you’ll—You’ll toss for me?”

She tries to keep looking at the ground, but slowly her eyes revolve back to Shouyou. And the redhead takes a couple steps forward. Tobio hurriedly drops her eyes.

“I—I’ve never done it before, though,” Shouyou says, “So what if…”

“You suck?”

“Shut up! I don’t!”

“I haven’t either,” Tobio says.

Shouyou blinks. “Really? But you’re super pretty. I thought you were popular.”

Tobio rolls her eyes and settles them back into a glare.

“You’d be prettier if you smiled, though.” Shouyou’s brow furrows, and she puts her hand to her chin. “Is that why you haven’t been kissed?”

“If you think I’m p—pretty enough to kiss, then get over here and do it!”

“Okay! Okay. O—Okay.”

Shouyou only inches forward, but it seems like far too soon she’s right in front of Tobio, and she can see every unruly curl and the tiny upturn at the end of her nose and the little bit of gold melted into the brown of her eyes. Tobio swallows.

“You’re short.”

“Nah ah! Compared to you, only. I’m average height!”

“I don’t think you are.”

“Do you want me to kiss you or not?!”

“Yeah,” she says immediately.

“Then—Then bend down.”

Shouyou frowns at their shoes as she flushes. Tobio complies without further comment. She watches the girl lean in, closer and closer, and her pounding heart shoots up into her throat. Almost every instinct tells her to run. Instead she stands there, shaking all over in a very small way that aches, fists clenched at her sides, heat sliding in waves over her probably miserable-looking face. The girl is going to kiss her, if she doesn’t run first.

Tobio watches Shouyou lean in, until her lips disappear from view, and she feels a hot, quivering breath on her chin. Her own lips fall just a little apart, loosening her jaw at the last second, and then she’s being kissed, their tense lips are pressed together and still. Something lightning shoots through her and Tobio jitters; she hopes it will make Shouyou pull away, but she also doesn’t wish that at all, she wants—

She lifts her eyes, and sees Shouyou closing hers. Oh, yes, you’re supposed to do that. She squeezes hers shut tightly at the same time as she leans, puts pressure against the other girl’s mouth, and Shouyou’s bottom lip falls away as she sucks in a breath, then returns to pressing back against Tobio’s, and Tobio gets hot all over. But it’s gone instantly, and then she’s only warm, in her fingers and cheeks and the tight ball deep in her stomach. Kissing is warm, it feels like her whole body’s wrapped up in a fleece blanket. Somewhere in her muscles there’s a burn from all the tenseness, and when Shouyou stops kissing, she finds she’s relieved.

Tobio opens her eyes and sees Shouyou opening hers. And then she opens her mouth. She’s going to say something unbearably stupid, Tobio just knows it. So she kisses her again.

Her hands come down on the girl’s shoulders, and it’s better, her body at least feels more grounded. She turns her head a little, and the girl copies her, and it’s too much and Tobio reels back, pulling away from her mouth. A second later she swoops down to kiss her again, like that. She feels a pull on the front of her coat when Shouyou grabs ahold of it with her hand.

They part again, blinking slowly at each other. Tobio heaves a sigh. Then it’s Shouyou who brings her lips eagerly back to hers.

When they pull back again, their breaths are deep and shaky, smoky on the cold air between them. Shouyou keeps her hand on her coat, and Tobio keeps hers on her shoulders, looking down at her neck as she measures her breathing. How does she talk? She can’t remember how to use her lips for anything else. But Shouyou can, apparently.

“How many—” She gulps down a breath. “How many tosses does that get me?”

Tobio feels worms in her stomach again, and wants to run away, but wants Shouyou to come with her. She works her dry mouth open.

“How many do you want?”

“A lot,” Shouyou says, with a little nod, and then she pushes back up on her toes and kisses her.


End file.
